Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[SuperDan]

22 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Something else to keep in mind....

 

I think very few people here would argue that the economy on live was good or healthy. Our changes (both past and present) are to ensure the Homecoming economy does not end up like that.

 

In other words: "It was like that on live" is not a good argument when it comes to anything related to the economy.

I'm glad you compared this to live. I want to give my experience there....

I quit CoH the first time just as the marketplace went live. I came back about a year later, saw the prices of things, and never bought more than a few commons for a couple toons. I wasn't into farming back then and didn't stick around long for a few reasons, one of the big ones being the marketplace. From what I understand, when the lights went out, the marketplace was out of control. I don't know all of the reasons for it, but I would expect it had a lot to do with what @Indystrucksaid above...marketers manipulating the prices of items. Marketers in CoH are the quintessential example of the rich getting richer at the expense of common folk, which is what I think you're trying to avoid. Inf farmers provide a balance to that by injecting currency into the game and, if they're like me and I know a lot are, selling everything on the cheap thereby driving prices down.

 

So unless there are some major changes down the road as they pertain to the marketplace, today's change is only the beginning of the slow march to live, as all else being equal, prices will rise pretty dramatically if left unabated. The people that are harmed by this are new players and players that don't have any substantial cash reserves at this moment. Marketers are about to boom.

If there is one, help me see the bigger picture here.

Edited March 31, 2020 by SuperDan

[Aeolus]

1 hour ago, Herotu said:

1+2+2+1

You, good sir/madam, have won the internet for this day!

[Gremlin]

26 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

No one likes nerfs, even if they're good for the game overall, ...

I do. I'm all in favour of nerfs that make the game better. Some of them affect me and some don't.

 

This dev team have earned my trust but making the game better and better. If I get swiped by the nerf bat a little I'm prepared to accept it's in a good cause.

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, Kalidor187 said:

I'm confused what the inf nerf is trying to achieve, though. With all cosmetic items unlocked at creation, free base building, and no money sinks to spend your influence on, what in the game's economy are we trying to fix? Ease of income allows ease of creating and equipping alts. Creating alts and trying new play styles is what retains players. I interpret this change as "you now need to grind more." Why?

the swtor devs have taken over.......

[ForeverLaxx]

Just now, Gremlin said:

I do. I'm all in favour of nerfs that make the game better. Some of them affect me and some don't.

 

This dev team have earned my trust but making the game better and better. If I get swiped by the nerf bat a little I'm prepared to accept it's in a good cause.

Fair enough. I really should have stated that not many like nerfs. Point taken.

[Number Six]

7 minutes ago, SuperDan said:

I quit CoH the first time just as the marketplace went live. I came back about a year later, saw the prices of things, and never bought more than a few commons for a couple toons. I wasn't into farming back then and didn't stick around long for a few reasons, one of the big ones being the marketplace. From what I understand, when the lights went out, the marketplace was out of control. I don't know all of the reasons for it, but I would expect it had a lot to do with what @Indystrucksaid above...marketers manipulating the prices of items. Marketers in CoH are the quintessential example of the rich getting richer at the expense of common folk, which is what I think you're trying to avoid. Inf farmers provide a balance to that by injecting currency into the game and, if they're like me and I know a lot are, selling everything on the cheap.

As someone who enjoyed playing the market back on the retail servers, and did some flipping, crafting, etc., while tracking market trends -- yes, it was out of control.

 

However, I saw no evidence of the 'ebil marketeers' forum regulars liked to complain about manipulating things on a large scale. Sure, someone would occasionally try to corner the Luck Charm market or something, but it was usually short lived because the clunky interface made it hard to keep up 24/7. Instead, the issue seemed to be a very simple one: Influence was being created at a faster rate than recipes and other items. As more and more accumulated, inflation got out of control to the point where people were trading Glad Armor IOs off-market for higher than the inf cap.

 

AE made it worse because it gave standard influence rewards, but AE tickets converted to drops at a lower rate than regular content. But the lack of any real influence sinks meant that the 10% market cut was not nearly enough to keep the economy stable.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, SuperDan said:

I'm glad you compared this to live. I want to give my experience there....

I quit CoH the first time just as the marketplace went live. I came back about a year later, saw the prices of things, and never bought more than a few commons for a couple toons. I wasn't into farming back then and didn't stick around long for a few reasons, one of the big ones being the marketplace. From what I understand, when the lights went out, the marketplace was out of control. I don't know all of the reasons for it, but I would expect it had a lot to do with what @Indystrucksaid above...marketers manipulating the prices of items. Marketers in CoH are the quintessential example of the rich getting richer at the expense of common folk, which is what I think you're trying to avoid. Inf farmers provide a balance to that by injecting currency into the game and, if they're like me and I know a lot are, selling everything on the cheap.

 

So unless there are some major changes down the road as they pertain to the marketplace, today's change is only the beginning of the slow march to live, as all else being equal, prices will rise pretty dramatically if left unabated. The people that are harmed by this are new players and players that don't have any substantial cash reserves at this moment. Marketers are about to boom.

If there is one, help me see the bigger picture here.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.  Buyers set the going price, not sellers.  The live game had very few influence sinks and rampant inflation.  HC has essentially capped the prices of salvage by seeding the market and allowing you to buy any recipe (or IO) by merits.  Prices do ebb and flow.  Sometimes things get more expensive (weekends, for example, when many play) and sometimes they get cheaper.  But they all stay within a relatively narrow band within rarity categories with a few premium items getting premium prices.  But those premium prices are a fraction of what they cost on the live game.

 

I don't know if this change will even be a blip on the price of items in the short or long term.  Time will tell.  But unless they remove and never replace the seeded salvage and remove the ability to purchase just about anything with merits, prices will NEVER match live.  Guaranteed.

[MunkiLord]

54 minutes ago, Targren said:

That's exactly what I meant by "it's telling:" they made the decision internally and anticipated the pushback they're getting. They ducked it and, now that it's going live, it's hitting harder. 

It's not hitting any harder, the gnashing of teeth was going to happen no matter what. It's just hitting now instead of when they were working on the other parts of the update. 

[Heatstroke]

So basically what I am seeing is that all the most popular farms even those WITHOUT this level 49 exploit thing are all " broken ". So there must be something else to this. Personally I am not happy about the change. Those that are sitting on billions of influence STILL have billions of influence.. so who does this really help? HOW does it really help? Why is everyone concerned about how much influence anyone else has? 
 

I would venture to say a fair number of the " i dont have any influence crowd " is because they PL'd with XP boosters and now find themselves without enough influence because " everything is so expensive "

[Grouchybeast]

6 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

If I wanted to make a fortune? Beating up hordes of angry cosplayers isn't the way I'd do it. Marketeering is, in all honesty, an order of magnitude more effective for that. Farming is just more fun in my opinion.

This isn't directed particularly at you, just this as a jumping off point:

 

People need to remember that using the market does not make inf.  Marketeering is fundamentally different from farming in that it actually removes inf from the game via the 10% AH tax.  And otherwise, the market is just moving the same inf around between accounts.  It does not cause inflation.  Consider this: if we stopped all inf drops, and kept recipe and salvage drops, trading on the market would eventually drain all inf from the game.

 

Farming (not just farming though, all mob defeats etc) actually adds inf to the game, and so is an inflationary force. 

 

Farming and marketeering have diametrically opposite effects on inflation in the game economy.

[Targren]

1 minute ago, MunkiLord said:

It's not hitting any harder, the gnashing of teeth was going to happen no matter what. It's just hitting now instead of when they were working on the other parts of the update. 

IME, I think the surprise of it and not having any time to come to deal with it before it changes like this makes it all the more acrimonious, but I can't really objectively measure that. 

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, DR_Mechano said:

If ever there was a case of 'closing the door AFTER the horse has bolted' this 'fix' was it. Fixing the exploit I understand but then nerfing the inf gain...*eyeroll*, this needed to be done ON LAUNCH of HC not now, over a year later, all it's doing now is pissing people off and making it so the haves (the people with 2 billion inf on multiple characters) are in a MUCH better position than the have-nots and that is, if you pardon my language, frankly fucking stupid.

 

Even IF these fix does actually do something, it's going to take probably like MONTHS to actually take effect, like well over 6 months as people burn off any major excess inf they have and, as mentioned, it doesn't hit the people who actually roll around in inf, those that use the market via the convert flipping trick, all you've done is just smash the supply chain for regular players.

 

 

they sure helped out the city of stockbrokers players though.

[Aracknight]

2 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

I don't think powersets have unique caps, AFAIK unique caps are AT based. I do think you're right that the DDR cap for all ATs is 95%, though. But that is also at level 50, that picture was taken at level 28. There's a lot of things that scale with level, that miiiight be one of them, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

That might be the explanation.  The OP's screencap with the DDR from the three toggles and the three passives seemed to add up to more than what his/her total DDR showed IIRC tho.

 

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, Grouchybeast said:

This isn't directed particularly at you, just this as a jumping off point:

 

People need to remember that using the market does not make inf.  Marketeering is fundamentally different from farming in that it actually removes inf from the game via the 10% AH tax.  And otherwise, the market is just moving the same inf around between accounts.  It does not cause inflation.  Consider this: if we stopped all inf drops, and kept recipe and salvage drops, trading on the market would eventually drain all inf from the game.

 

Farming (not just farming though, all mob defeats etc) actually adds inf to the game, and so is an inflationary force. 

 

Farming and marketeering have diametrically opposite effects on inflation in the game economy.

 

I wasn't addressing the inflation issue. You're completely right there. I was thinking about the "haves and have-nots" aspect of it all.

 

If the devs are interested in fostering some level of... I don't know. Let's call it 'Income Equality'... then targeting the AE farmers seems like looking at the lesser of the supposed Evils. It's the marketeers who are playing Scrooge McDuck, not the AE-crowd playing City of Farmville. 

[lythy77]

22 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

While I'm personally all for removing the lvl49/patrol XP exploit, I also have to admit that I would be a lot less annoyed by the additional No-XP-for-Extra-INF change if the HC devs hadn't *ALREADY* halved INF and XP rewards for all AE content last year. 

 

The combination of the two is starting to get into "Maybe you've nerfed this a little too much, guys"-territory. And I'm saying that as a relatively casual farmer who basically just does it for fun, to help alt-a-holic roleplayer friends level or to equip the relatively small number of characters in my own crew.

 

If I wanted to make a fortune? Beating up hordes of angry cosplayers isn't the way I'd do it. Marketeering is, in all honesty, an order of magnitude more effective for that. Farming is just more fun in my opinion.

 

That aside? Nice job, guys. The new costume toys are ace.

this guy gets it 100 percent. im the same

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, lythy77 said:

this guy gets it 100 percent. im the same

 

Gal, actually. 

This coyote is a lady-type gamer. XD

[HelBlaiz]

I'm more disappointed in the surprise factor of the influence change than anything. It felt kinda thrown in after all the exciting bit almost like fine print. If it were the first thing listed, it would be far less bothersome to me. That being said, I think it was the first thing listed in the general changes section, and the point of mentioned.ing exploits before fixing them makes it palatable. When I farm, I don't really care about efficiency or reaching a quota, so I doubt I'll really care in practice about the loss of profit.

[Noyjitat]

35 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Something else to keep in mind....

 

I think very few people here would argue that the economy on live was good or healthy. Our changes (both past and present) are to ensure the Homecoming economy does not end up like that.

 

In other words: "It was like that on live" is not a good argument when it comes to anything related to the economy.

You're being rather inconsistent when you think hard caps on prices and an artificially supplied economy is healthy. 

 

[Elmyder]

35 minutes ago, Arkterusss said:

We need some Thread sinks, too.  After getting all your incarnates it feels weird to see a stack of 1,000 threads sitting around not doing much. 🤙

Convert your threads to super inspirations (specifically furious rages, impenetrables, righteous rage imbuements, and impenetrable imbuements) and put those up on the market for 1-2 mill inf a piece. They will sell. I will buy them, for one, and thank you for supplying them haha.

[Houtchmaster]

As someone who does not have a lot of influence since rejoining the game, and who is trying desperately to save up influence in order to purchase named enhancements for heroes, this influence change hurts me. I don't have billions to draw from, and now it seems, the difficulty of saving up will (to my appearance) be twice as hard =/.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Houtchmaster

[BigHeavy]

1 hour ago, Kanil said:

 

 

 

Right!

Maybe...

[Number Six]

8 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

People need to remember that using the market does not make inf.  Marketeering is fundamentally different from farming in that it actually removes inf from the game via the 10% AH tax.  And otherwise, the market is just moving the same inf around between accounts.  It does not cause inflation.  Consider this: if we stopped all inf drops, and kept recipe and salvage drops, trading on the market would eventually drain all inf from the game.

You beat me to it. Playing the market is secondary and doesn't actually generate anything. 😀

 

If anything, the fact that people are able to make tons of Inf off the market tells me that not enough people are playing it effectively and there isn't enough competition between those doing it...

[Indystruck]

2 minutes ago, Aracknight said:

Yeah, here it is.  Math says it should be 86.6%, no?

If the cap at 28 is 64.28%, then, no.

If the cap at 28 is 95% and it doesn't scale upward gradually like I think it might, then, yes, it should be 86.6%.

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 minutes ago, Number Six said:

You beat me to it. Playing the market is secondary and doesn't actually generate anything. 😀

 

If anything, the fact that people are able to make tons of Inf off the market tells me that not enough people are playing it effectively and there isn't enough competition between those doing it...

I, for one, am extremely grateful for the ineffective players.

[Jimmy]

3 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

You're being rather inconsistent when you think hard caps on prices and an artificially supplied economy is healthy. 

For a videogame, a healthy market (in my opinion anyway) is one that is rewarding for the average player to interact with, but still has depth for those who want to engage further. We're pretty close to that right now.